Arrow
A dark-haired woman many years older than the ones she's seen, Arrow is tall, yet slim from the hardships of a life beyond the wall. Were she able to have a proper diet growing up, the near six-foot tall woman could have even been several inches taller. She covers herself in the furs and bones of her successful hunts, and paints her face with chalk and berries. Biography The life of a wildling is, arguably, the hardest life in all of Westeros. Arrow exemplifies that to perfection. The clan that she eventually grew up was one of no great significance, with barely a hundred souls in it. Her life of solitude began when she was a child. The free folk that raised her, the closest thing to a father she ever knew, found her as a babe at the edge of death, cradled in her frozen dead mother's arms, clutching in her tiny baby hands her namesake - a single weirwood arrow tipped with an obsidian arrowhead t. That freefolk, Krom, was childless himself - his wife dying in childbirth just the year before. Krom took her in, and raised her in his way - the way of a hunter. By the time she was three she held her first bow, and not a year later made her first kill. Always a quiet child, Arrow prefered the quiet solitude of her forest hunting trips with Krom over playing with the other children. With every trip, Krom imparted a little more wisdom of Arrow, and urged her to be a little better with her bow. It was not long that it dawned on Krom that she would be better than him, in nearly every way - given time. Their hunting trips would get longer with each, the pair ranging as far as the Fist of the First Men to Hardhome, and finally to the great Wall itself, it's icy glory forever burned into the young girl's mind. It was on this trip, at the young age of fourteen, that Arrow had the worst day of her young life. She was walking with her father when an unexpected torturous pain ripped through her stomach, doubling her over in pain. The mind of the young girl thought she was wounded when blood flowed for the first time from her. Krom reassured her that she was not dying, and that she was just becoming a women. He gathered a few roots and such, mixing her a small pain medicine to soothe her pain. In the midst of this talk, time seemed to freeze for her as Krom's eyes lifted over her shoulder to something behind her. She never really knew what happened, then, though she lives that night still to this day in her nightmares. Her father pushes her out of the way as a white wolf - the largest wolf Arrow has ever seen, twice the size of a regular wolf - barely missing crushing her throat with jaws the size of daggers. She heard Krom shout for her to run as he battled the wolf, and the last thing she saw was his crimson lifeblood splatter on the pristine snow. She ran hard, as hard as her young legs could take her, from the wolf. From that day, Arrow has been truly alone in the world. Sure, she interacts with the various clans in the Haunted Forest, and has even grown fond of a few of them - . But never again has she been close to any others. To the clans she does interact with, she has grown a fearsome reputation as a hunter - a tall woman that has slain beasts of all size, great bears and mountain lions, wolves and worse - men. She wears the various trophies of her hunts proudly, which only bolsters her reputation amongst the free folk, and still carries the arrow that she was found with as a child In all her days, a hunt has never failed her - no man nor beast has escaped her, once she starts the hunt. All but one - the direwolf that slayed the closest thing she had to a family. That she hunts for, and has sworn to the Old Gods that she will kill it. TIMELINE: 280: Found by Krom in the Haunted Forest, clutching a weirwood arrow. 283: Starts training with the bow, and hunting. 286-294: Travels everywhere with Krom, learning and mastering her arts. 294: Has her first bleeding, which accidentally attracts a white direwolf that kills Krom. 295-298: Travels around the Haunted Forest, interacting with the various tribes. Gains a reputation as one of the best hunters, despite her sex and age. SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: Hellen (Warrior: Spear) Byrd (Wanderer) Category:Wildling Category:Beyond the Wall